In art class one year my professor taught us the importance of contrast in painting. Contrast is basically opposites and what he meant was that in order to see one tone in a painting it must be against a contrasting tone. That makes sense right, if a painting was in all black you wouldn't be able to see anything. You need shades of white so that the black can be made visible. In essence its the contrast that defines the object. This opened my eyes and I started seeing contrasts everywhere and in everything. Tall and short, pattern and chaos, motion and still, sad and happy, good and evil, sleep and awake, life and death. I started to see that this is life's breath, it inhales and it exhales and that is how it keeps living and balancing. Everything makes so much sense like this. Even our lives are filled with these kind of stories, the Hero against the villain, the lovers that cannot be together, the victim gets revenge. Its everywhere, and its how we define everything in our lives. I started seeing everything clearly, that is until this happened.
"But You have to always remember one thing" My art professor said one day at the end of a painting class as he reached down and pulled a piece of paper out of his bag. "This," He said as we all huddled around the piece of paper on his desk to see what it is. We looked down in confusion at this rather lame picture of a chess board.
He then explained that "your mind will see these two squares A and B as being completely different in tone but in fact they are the same shade." he goes on "Your mind puts things into context, it will change the meaning of the tones based on its surroundings." What? Is he saying that what we think we see isn't always what is actually there? here is that same image with everything but the two squares photoshopped out.
"remember this" he said "because when you get stuck this is going to be the reason." His words stuck with me. But if life is just different tones what aren't we seeing clearly? How many times a day do i miss judge a tone in my life? or a situation or a problem or a person? and all because of what is surrounding that tone or situation or problem or person. How can I see things more clearly for exactly what they are? I can see now that media, movies, peoples opinions so frequently change the tones in my life and make it hard to accurately see. They make me stuck and indecisive. Like i am right now about a very big decision i have to make. I feel stuck like a deer in the headlights blinded by the blaring tones of culture and media staring right at me. I have to remember that The answer is there. I just have to open my eyes and remember that things aren't always what they seem, that when I get stuck this is going to be the reason.
What are your thoughts about this post? is this total rubbish or does this resonate with some of you?
So in this analogy, is the green cylinder 'media' and the shadow is the effect that is has on people?!
ReplyDeleteYes I think that I often question WHY I think what I do; is it my own opinion or something someone TOLD me to believe. In the end, I think it's both. Not all opinions of society are wrong, but I think that there are so many hypocritical values there that it is not a good moral guideline. I feel like society wants me to "be myself", but not too much so because I still need to look a certain way to be accepted.
I like this little illustration because it is about perception. Perceiving situations clearly is probably the most valuable trait a person can have.
Hey Rita,
ReplyDeleteIn this metaphor I wasn't intending for the green cylinder to symbolize anything, but I don't think it takes anything away to think about it like that. The main point of this metaphor is to show 1) that we judge our lives based on value (tone) and 2) our judgments of these said values are often misguided or skewed.
Yes your other parts are very correct, not all of mass opinion or media is bad, I guess I just wanted to question where these persuasions come from and the validity of these places. Not all bad but definitely worth questioning.
Thanks for your comment. Also your last sentence made me think of a skit from south park where Kyle had the worst super power you could possibly have, perfect hindsight. so funny
sorry for such a late response. i find this really interesting because i directly relate what you are defining as "contrast" to what i call "relativity." its the same concept but with different definitions ... which is always great haha.
ReplyDeletewhen you talk about contrast everywhere, up and down, black and white, etc etc ... to me that is relativity. i have trouble alotting anything a true value bc i consider it to have an equal and opposite value somewhere in the universe. if these variables have an absolute value (4 is the same as -4 in value ... remember "absolute value" from middle school math?)then what is the importance of the 2 variables?? they cancel each other out ...
this may be far from what you mean, but my perception from the post brought me to this place, so i think its worthy of discussion :)
how do you feel about this relationship between relativity and contrast?
sorry this post is like a month late, but go for it if you please. :)